About self-promotion

If you haven’t, you need to read David Carruthers’ post Why I Use Twitter. Hint…It’s Not Self-Promotion.  It’s the conversation that everyone who uses social media at any level needs to have with themselves.

I read it and wrote a “blog post” reply to David in the comments and maybe pushed a button with him but I think that’s OK.  At this point, even the fact that we’re having this discussion is a statement that there is no definitive answer on this.

So, this is now about me and my perspective.  David was the catalyst that got me started.

self-promotion Promotion, including advertising and publicity, of oneself effected by oneself.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. S.v. “self-promotion.” Retrieved October 31 2018 from https://www.thefreedictionary.com/self-promotion

I would argue that, at an appropriate level, self-promotion is a necessary element in our digitally connected world.  There is so much information, and even noise, that it’s necessary to help get your word out.

There was a time BT (Before Twitter) where promotion was done by your actions, promoted by people who experienced you doing good things.  Now, it can be done DIY.

But there should be a limit.

In my reply to David, I did a social media take on the old adage of the forest and falling trees.

The blogging equivalent would be “if I write a post and don’t let people know about it, does it exist?”

As I indicated in the reply, there should be a significant amount of self control over self-promotion.  After a while at very high and frequent levels, and I hope we can all agree on this, it can become annoying and block-worthy.  Then, the wheels fall off.  David sets the context in Twitter and perhaps the worst of the worst actions is retweeting yourself over and over.

Beyond annoying, could it become dangerous when it becomes over-promotion?

Does there reach a point where the over-promotion turns the individual from just another social media user to a perceived expert in their chosen field with no qualifications other than a message that’s been repeated and repeated?  It seems to me that this scenario goes far beyond annoying and now into the world of dangerous.

It goes that extra step beyond analyzing yourself and into critically looking at the actions and the messages of others.  We live in a world where everyone has an increased sensitivity towards “fake news” and now need to fully appreciate that not all of this will come from traditional news sources or professional educational research and journals.  It may well come in the form of the next Twitter message that your read.

Understanding and analyzing this can only have good results.

Thanks, David, for starting me down this path of thought.